


look to the western sky

by starlightwalking



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dark, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Gray Morality, Guilt, Hate Sex, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Trans Characters, Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2020, Mentioned Eärendil/Elwing, Mindfuck, Non-Explicit Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Third Kinslaying, Trauma, eldritch peredhil, past Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28719783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: When he comes for her, sword in hand, she does the only thing she knows how to do. But she didn't intend for it to end likethis.
Relationships: Elwing/Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 22
Kudos: 55
Collections: Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2020





	look to the western sky

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [LotR_SeSa_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/LotR_SeSa_2020) collection. 



> For anonymous, who requested the following:
> 
> "From her ancestors Elwing has inherited not only the Silmaril but also great-grandma Melian's ability to enchant elves. When Maedhros comes to her with sword in hand, she hypnotizes him, determined to take revenge for everything the Feanorians have done and to protect the Havens, her family and the Silmaril.  
> I see this as a very dub-con, M to E kind of story. Past Maedhros/Fingon is a bonus. If you can somehow spin it, so Maedhros's fate in the end is kinder than in canon, I will love you forever. I don't want Elwing/Maedhros to be endgame. I want her to be conflicted about what she's doing because she realizes that it's morally repugnant, but I don't want Elwing bashing. I want two very grey characters. Besides, I like Maedhros/Fingon and Elwing/Earendil."
> 
> I hope this is the kind of thing you were looking for! This idea grabbed me and wouldn't let go; sorry it's late, but better late than never, right?
> 
> MAJOR WARNINGS for:  
> Extremely dubious consent bordering on rape/non-con (I tagged for both just to be safe), altered mental states, implied trans background characters, lots of guilt and rationalization of horrific behavior, POV of the person who is not the victim
> 
> If you are prepared for a story with all that and a bit more, I invite you to continue; otherwise, take care of yourself and have a nice day.
> 
> Title from "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.

She didn’t intend to do it. And when she did—she didn’t intend for it to go so far.

She didn’t intend any of it.

* * *

But when they came for her, as they had come for her parents, for her brothers—what was she supposed to do?

She would never let them have the jewel, never. She had lost everything, now, and everyone—her sons were gone, she knew not where—she would not allow all that sacrifice to be in vain.

And even still—

* * *

They cornered her, in her high tower. Fire and blood around her, consuming—and the creature made of fire and blood, wading forward, silver eyes empty.

She screamed. His two red shadows fell, blood trickling from their ears. They did not rise again.

But another, there was another, where was the singer to master her voice? He must be hiding—at any moment he would appear, kill her the way she had killed his brothers—

She would not give him the satisfaction. Nor would she fall to the fiery sword lunging toward her.

She raised her voice again, in song—and this time, though her enemy swayed and fell, he did not die.

* * *

It was a gift from her foremother Melian. Not a nightingale’s song, no, but a gull’s harsh cry. Yet still it carried power, beyond anything she could comprehend.

She didn’t _mean_ it. Not truly.

She wanted to hurt him, to hurt him the way she had been hurt, to find his weakness and strike true, to turn this creature of fire and blood into the orc he almost was.

But _still_ —

She didn’t mean for him to fall to his knees, silver eyes glazing over, and beg forgiveness for sins he had not committed.

(He had done many dreadful things, she knew...but not _that_.)

* * *

It was sweet, to be certain, but the tongue he spoke was not her own. It was the one forbidden by her forefather; her husband’s language—

She shoved thoughts of him aside; _where was he now when she needed him most, why was this monster here and not her husband—_

* * *

He was under her spell. At her command he locked the tower door, cast the bodies of his fallen brothers out into the sea.

( _Twins_ , they were _twins_ —and where were _her_ twins, her little boys, had they escaped? Were they safe? Or were they—)

He knelt at her feet when he was done, that terrible un-focus in his eyes.

She didn’t mean for him to be like _this_.

(She didn’t know what she _had_ meant.)

* * *

She could not sleep that night, not with _him_ there. And yet—he could not sleep either, so enthralled was he by the lingering power of her song.

She wept for the fall of her city, the loss of her people, the fate of her sons, the loneliness consuming her—

And then he was at her bedside, towering over her, and she felt fear.

* * *

But he did not slay her. (She had made him cast his weapons into the sea, also.) Nor did he reach for her to violate, to harm. Instead he sat at the foot of her bed and croaked out apologies for—for unspeakable things. Things that had they truly occurred, would not be _his_ fault, but his captor’s—

Oh.

 _She_ was his captor, now.

But she had one jewel at her neck, not three in her crown, and she knew she was not the Enemy.

* * *

And yet he did not leave. He was so close, still bloody, still burning. And she was so _cold_ , so _lonely_...

And she did want to hurt him, even if this wasn’t how she’d intended it.

* * *

“Lord,” he whispered, “how may I please you? I have wronged you, lord. Let me serve you...”

She did not know why he called her _lord_ , but—but with her husband it had never been so _intense_ , and he was _asking_ —

She was so _alone_. And if he _wanted_ it—and _she_ wanted it—

* * *

He _burned_ , even more than she thought he would. She made him take her from behind, lying on her front, so that he could not reach the jewel he sought. And though he was inside of her, filling her the way her husband had filled her (but _more_ , so very much more) he was still... _subservient_ to her.

She felt very like a conquering queen. She let his fire consumed her, tip her over the cliff’s edge of ecstasy—

She pushed him off her before he could follow. He went, meek, murmuring apologies, _more_ apologies.

Her head spun, but...she was tired now, so tired.

She tied him to the bed, ensured he could not move, and let the darkness claim her.

* * *

When she woke, his eyes were clear.

Fear gripped her at once, and she scrambled back, away from him—but he made no move to assault her. He did not even test his bonds, though she knew that at his full strength he could break them as easily as her sons broke river-reeds.

“Lady,” he rasped, and her heart pounded, remembering all she had done—all she had let him do—

“Kinslayer!” she cried, clinging to that—but she had killed his brothers, had she not; she also had done so much wrong—

At the sound of her voice he flinched, and something dreadful overcame her again. She sang once more, sang until her throat hurt and her ears bled and his eyes rolled back into his head.

* * *

She hadn’t meant to do it _again_. But she’d been afraid, so very _afraid_...

* * *

This time he didn’t cower from her. Instead he smiled, glazed silver eyes glowing with Other-light and something like affection. Somehow, she thought that was worse.

(She could not deny he was beautiful like this, in his own twisted way.)

* * *

She unbound him, because she had to be able to use her control over him _some_ how—his followers had yet to retreat from the burning wreck of her city, though they no longer actively pillaged and murdered their way through bloodstained streets.

She didn’t expect his hands on her, pushing her down into the bed. She cried out in fear, but he only chuckled lowly from his ruined throat, whispering endearments in that forbidden tongue, and she realized that he did not see her as herself, nor as his captor, but as—someone else. A lover, long gone.

And his hands on her—they were big and warm and she still ached pleasantly from the night before, and...

When he pulled up her skirt and mouthed at her sex, she didn’t have the strength to pull away.

* * *

She gripped his hair and bucked her hips and let him devour her. It felt good—so good—her husband had never—

She didn’t know where he’d learned this. She’d thought the rumors put him in bed with ellyn. But she forgot all that as he did _something_ with his tongue and she saw stars, brighter, she was sure, than they had been even at Cuiviénen.

* * *

“Finno,” he slurred, his mouth still dripping with her release, eyes still glazed from her song. “You taste different...was it the baby...?”

She realized, then, three things: his lover had been a male like her mother’s father was a male, capable of bearing a child; his lover had been the Noldo King before her husband’s grandfather; his lover had borne a child to _him_ , and that child even now (she hoped) sailed across the bay to aid...

Who? His living father? Or the witch who enchanted and abused him?

She screamed, and for just a moment, the spell broke. His eyes focused, filled with horror and pain and sorrow—

She screamed again, hating him, hating herself, and reasserted her control.

* * *

She hadn’t intended to replace his lover, even for a moment.

Was it wrong that the _grief_ had frightened her most, when he realized she was not his dead lover—not the anger when he realized that she was his enemy?

* * *

A message from his only surviving brother, one that chilled her to the bone:

_I have your sons. Return my brother and receive one child in turn. Relinquish our property, and receive the other._

* * *

She tore the letter to shreds as she had the others before it, clutching the jewel at her chest and feeling it _burn_ in a way it had not before.

The Noldo King was coming—she had seen his ship’s sails on the horizon—but if that wretched minstrel had _her children_ —

If the King was _his child_ —

* * *

“Will he hurt them?” she demanded. “Your brother. Will he harm my sons?”

He stared at her blankly, all emotion void in those silver eyes.

It was dangerous, but before she decided, she had to _know_ —would her sons be safe, if she delayed? Or would the minstrel—whose voice, like hers, was a powerful weapon—

She sang softly, lifting the enchantment just a touch, and repeated her question.

“We are not _orcs_ ,” he snarled in answer. “We are elder brothers—”

He fell silent, eyes glazing over again. “We _were_ ,” he whispered, “before you and your father _killed_ our brothers.”

But did that mean they would kill her sons in turn?

* * *

This time it was her who grabbed him, overwhelmed with hatred and despair. All was lost, all—her sons were dead, or mind-turned, she could never see them again, why would the minstrel hold to his word even if she surrendered her captive and the jewel for which she had lost _everything_?

“We swore an _Oath_ ,” he growled, but he let her rip his clothes from his body, let her mount him furiously, let her bite him as hateful passion overtook all reason—

She hadn’t meant to let her guard down. She hadn’t meant to let the enchantment slip.

She pushed him up against the wall, shouting obscenities into the wind, hoping his brother could hear her. It was wrong, all of this was wrong, everything had gone so _horrifically_ wrong—

But it could always get worse.

* * *

She felt a massive hand move from her hips to her throat, and she knew the end was near. Only—he did not choke her, nor did he lift her off his shaft. He grasped not her neck, but her _necklace_ —

* * *

She was born in water, and in water she would die. She was raised by the ocean, and the clear waters of Tol Galen were the song of her soul. How fitting this would be her end.

His end, also; his flame quenched in ocean’s waves, even as his hand and her neck burned with excruciating heat.

She pushed him back, still connected, and they toppled together out the high tower window and into the chasm below.

* * *

Neither of them ever returned to those shores. His brother raised her sons; a new star rose in the sky, trailed by a fiery comet.

They were dead, whispered those few survivors; they had to be dead. They fell from the tower—and his brother’s terrible compulsion to kill was gone, refocused now to the _true_ Enemy—they were dead. They had to be.

But that comet; that _star_...

* * *

They were seen falling into the sea, caught in a treacherous embrace, half battle, half bond. They ought to have been dashed on the jagged rocks below, as had the bodies of his little brothers.

But it was said that a great wave crested before anyone could see them land, and no bodies were ever found.

* * *

His brother hoped he was dead. It would be kinder that way, after all he had endured. Perhaps in death he could find healing.

* * *

Her sons knew she still lived. They saw their father in the star, their mother in the cold sea foam—the fiery elf in the comet. They said as much to this strange, frightful new father of theirs, but when he wept at their words they resolved not to speak of it again.

* * *

Those who saw their plummet were too occupied looking at the rocks and the sea. They did not notice in the sky, two birds rising from the waves, a jewel clutched in the one talon of a red hawk. They did not notice a white gull chasing him, pursuing the only thing she could still pursue.

They did not notice two birds, one red, one white, soaring into the western sky.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, I'd appreciate a comment, but I would ask that you refrain from character bashing. This is not my usual take on Elwing, and I tried to present her as a very traumatized young woman whose childhood monsters have quite literally come back to kill her, and her choosing to deal with that in the worst possible way. She is absolutely in the wrong here, but I'm not comfortable with simplifying the story down to "Elwing is evil."
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [@arofili](https://arofili.tumblr.com/).


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